Edmund

What is life? Or better yet, what is a human being?

We are but a fleeting, helpless leaf, brittle and brown, torn from the branch and carried hither and thither by the strong gusts of an indifferent wind. A mere husk of a boat, its sails tattered, surrendered to the mercy of the mighty sea currents. 

Free will, I have come to believe, is but a beautiful, cruel illusion. We do not make our own choices. We merely think we do, believing our hands are on the tiller. But row as hard as you may, you still might not end up where you had intended to go in the first place. Best to let go of the oars, in that case, is what I have learned. To surrender to the current. Whatever will be, will be, a thought as cold and comforting as the floorboards of this attic.

Yet I cannot complain about what has transpired in my own life so far. By the Gods, I have no right to. I have led a good life here, in the year 2025. An extraordinary one, at that, a life I never could have imagined in the smoky parlors of my own time.

How many of my contemporaries can say that they have had the golden opportunity of travelling through time? Of getting to know what the world of tomorrow will look like, tasting its strange foods, hearing its cacophony of sounds? Not a single one. I inhale and exhale deeply, the modern air feeling crisp and unfamiliar, trying to convince myself that the decision I had taken was for the best, for my own good. I am a very privileged man, a temporal castaway who found a second home.

In London 2025, I get to relish in sunny mornings, the smell of fresh radishes and spring onions mingling with the city's exhaust fumes at the street market. I get to hear good music, the kind that vibrates through the floorboards and lodges itself in your memory. I get to taste good coffee, no, heck, great coffee, a dark and bitter pleasure I once considered a modern sin. A pleasant apartment Mr. Addison has been so kind to share with me, a kindness that has underlined for me that in time, I have become something akin to a lost son to him. And I would be lying if I said I did not share the same sentiment, looking upon the old man as if he were my own father, a calm, steady port in this storm of a new century. And the books... By Jove, the books. In paper form, electronic form, countless books, more than I could ever read in my entire lifetime, a library that seems to expand with every passing day.

The multitude of theatrical and musical performances lift one up. I enjoy going to the Thames river bank, where the sound of the gulls feels like a constant, reassuring hum. I've even found a new peculiar hobby: eluding political passions and sports passions. Everyone seems to be mighty intrigued when it comes to politics, and football, so it is peculiar, yet refreshing, being the odd one out. The wind. Having flowers in the window. All those tasty lunches and dinners I made, good recipes, audio visual advice from the U Tub. Yes, I have no right to complain. There are so many things I have enjoyed here.

People-watching. My mind of a writer has now become a treasure vault, filled with an endless hodgepodge of hairstyles, dresses, grimaces, and attitudes. Memories of scents, the soft glow of phones, the flutter of light scarves, hands that sometimes hug you, petty insults, small fusses. Writing letters over the internet. Instant texting. Gaming. Cheering at victories. Throwing the controller in rage at defeats.

Cooking together with Magna in our little attic apartment.

My little attic apartment, I remind myself.

Ah, yes. It's a small world we live in. Just like always, my thoughts always come back full circle to Miss Reign. No matter how much I might try to distract myself, whenever I close my eyes, she is there, a ghost of laughter, a shadow of her fiery spirit.

Magna.

We have been good friends, Magna and I. And one might even say that, as of last night, we have become even better friends. A small cheeky smile that peeks out from the corner of my mouth promptly loses the battle with the fierce tears assaulting my cheeks, and ultimately, retreats, waving a white flag of surrender.

And now, we are no-thing and no-one to each other. Now, she is gone for good. After having told her I have no intention of leaving 2025, she has no reason to come back here with her time device, to take me back home to the 1840s. So I imagine she won't return.

It was so difficult to part ways, to open my arms and let her fly away, fully knowing I may never meet her again. And even if I do, she will not be that same friend. She will be someone else. She will have changed. She will be... someone belonging to another time, a fleeting, unreachable memory. Of all the difficult facts I have had to accept in my short life, accepting not to see Magna Reign again is by far the most difficult one.

She and I, we had something truly special. We were bound together in an unworldly way. Stubborn and bold of heart, sharing a feisty spirit, passionate about the things that matter—we were so alike. As we parted, as Magna... left me, I could almost feel that bond snap, and I bled, inwardly, a hollow ache where she once resided.

But she will surely forget me after a while. This magnificent girl, this woman whom I viewed as my second self, as my earthly companion. Perhaps, some things just are not meant to be. Some choices not chosen. The roads not taken. Maybe, just maybe I should let those roads remain in that wonderful borderland between truth and imagination, where they will perpetually dazzle me with the colors of my dreams, hundreds of shimmering possibilities at once.

But what are all the roads not taken, all the shimmering possibilities, but mere visages and fatamorganas, in comparison to the one? Having the one means to have the chance to love someone who loves you with all her soul. And having the chance to give her back with the same strength and intensity, loving her with all your soul. Not many people are that lucky. And I know fully well, I may never find that again.

I toss and turn in a sleeping bag, a token of the first day I began living here in the attic, and a token I have refused to change. I end up lying on my stomach, pitying my miserable life, since I still cannot quite get myself to now sleep in Magna's bed, which must be still emanating her scent, a cruel reminder of her presence.

A soft touch caresses my cheek, and I open my eyes. The ginger tomcat's fluffy tail brushes off my tears as he nuzzles his head against mine. "I might as well come clean and admit it: I have grown to believe that you are a mighty fine feline specimen, Sir William," I praise him, placing a palm on his spine, watching him stretch under it with pleasure. 

Then William cocks his head, looks up towards the door, and lets out a loud, excited meow. The yowl is so shrill I feel the need to intervene, lest the tomcat has done himself harm. "William? Whatever is the matter? Well then?" I frown, almost expecting the furry, fluffy beast to speak up and explain himself.

"My black heels look so tiny next to your leather loafers. But I kind of like the way they sit pretty next to each other. I must say, it pleases me on an inexplicable, fundamental level, Milord."

That voice! It cannot be!

Yet, it has to be. It is she. I would recognize it anywhere. At any time. The attic door has been swung open, and Miss Magna Reign now stands before me in the flesh—snow-covered, pink-cheeked and breathless, a halo of damp, dark hair framing her face.

There are a million words and none in her eyes, for this is our story—a story told at a deeper level.

"What is a girl like you doing in times like these?" I force myself to sound calm, my voice a shaky imitation of my old self, staring at my witch and my fairy, my saviour and my tormentor as the cat contentedly weaves an infinity symbol around her ankles.

"Suffice to say, Milord Worthington, that I'm here to protect you from faulty Pornhub links, and Tinder dates gone wrong. And there is another reason altogether: I've come to rescue poor William from you. I couldn't leave him in your care. Not to mention how all those rainforests still need saving, you know."

"You definitely belong in a time like this, then. A girl full of passion, bold, stubborn and ready to fight for the things that matter." My mouth spews the words of our usual teasing banter, yet my mind is still taking her in, still struggling to comprehend that she is not a mere mirage. That she is real.

The clash between vision and reality eventually becomes so great that it renders me speechless. I cannot formulate a thought, any longer, at least not a coherent one, or one based in any language I know, and if I do not touch her soon, my atoms will tear themselves apart. How the ground between us is erased I shall never recall, but one moment we are two entities, and the next we are morphed into a single being, a single breath, a single heartbeat.

The warmth of my body meets her cold skin. One of her hands clasps my lower back, the other strokes my hair. With each soft touch, more tears fall, tears neither of us wipe away. Our souls whisper something to each other, speak without words, bat their eyelashes at each other and come to an agreement, an unbreakable treaty.

Magna pulls her head back and devours me with her huge golden-brown eyes, running her hand through my hair, as if she, just like me, cannot quite believe I am not a part of an almost forgotten dream. "You are back. I cannot believe you are back. You are back." Is what I say out loud, time and time again.

Do not go. Don't you dare go and leave me, not again. Is what I think inwardly. But I fear speaking up, vocalising it, because I know I have no right to keep her, to tell her what she is to do. She has always been free and if she has come to me now, out of her own free will, should she wish to leave again, she must be able to do so, even if such a choice utterly destroys me.

"Yes, silly, I'm back! Yet you keep repeating it. Edmund. Thank you. For your great kindness. For opening my eyes as to who I am and where I belong. I'm indeed glad to get back to you. Wherever you are is my home. My true home."

"But I seem to recall you have once said that the year 2025 is too slow for your taste? It has been too fast for mine. Still, I suppose you helped me catch up." I caress her strands with devotion, not believing what I am actually hearing with my own ears.

"When we're together, it is just right, Lord Worthington." She smiles, a pure, incandescent smile that melts away all my pain and doubt. "Your little bird has returned. You see, I've realized something today. We're one, you and I. We have to be together. So intertwined in our senses and feelings that they can cry out to one another across continents and ages, so close are our thoughts."

"So you promise you are here to stay? This is not some kind of a cunning, treacherous dream, and when I wake up, you will be gone? It would not surprise me this was just an apparition, sent here to torment me. You have always been a little witch, after all."

"I promise I will stay," she says, and her earnest words are music to my ears. "I'm so sorry for leaving. Even for this little while. For hurting you. I was so stupid. How could I not see it before? We were never meant to walk different paths. I can't be more sorry for... For making you think you shall never see me again." She peppers my forehead with light kisses and I sigh, contented to just listen to her soothing words, which close all my open wounds.

"And I see this: one's in danger of spoiling you too much."

I cannot believe my luck. I cannot believe she came back for me. I have almost nothing a girl like her could want. Well, there is my face and my body, but that is about it. Maybe she would have been attracted to the old me more—the man who had been free to pursue his passions. There'd been a lot going for that guy, Lord Edmund Worthington. I barely know him anymore. He has shed his old skin, left his past behind.

"Magna, I..." I look up at her with reverence. "I know you may grow tired of these words but I must reiterate them. You are fully aware of what this means? By not going back to your time, with your father... You have just made a huge sacrifice. I do not want you to feel pressured."

"There's no pressure at all, Milord." Magna smiles. "I even nicked a now fully functioning Time Device, in case we want to go on a time period tour of our dreams." She waves the apparatus before me and I can hardly contain my excitement.

Just she and I, touring the eternity. The linear timeline of humanity, from cave dwellings, to the furthest future the machine can take us.

"In that case, and if you are absolutely certain you are staying in 2025: I was wondering if you would like to go to a theatre tonight, and see a Shakespeare play? And maybe afterwards perhaps, you could accompany me to a dine-and-dash dinner. I mean, I shall understand completely if you're otherwise engaged." I swallow and scratch my nape.

Sensation shocks through me as she jolts my head upwards, ending my silly self-torturing struggles before they even began. The cool silk of her lips on mine feels like heaven. As Magna strokes her hot tongue into my mouth, her taste and familiar scent intoxicate me. She grips my shoulders and presses her body closer to mine. I surround her with my arms and align our hips, her softness to my hardness. Liquid ache pervades both our limbs.

My heart pitter-patters as Magna says the words I've longed to hear her say out of her own volition, yet dared not hope for.

"This strange time. It might not be yours, nor mine. But it's ours." She whispers.

"It is, Magna. Time is a field of ever-blooming flowers but a moment with that special someone is a butterfly. We may have been castaways from different times, accidentally stranded on the same boat..."

She finishes my sentence.

"Maybe. But you and I together, we've learned to navigate the treacherous waters. And we've arrived to the same desert island we shall now make into our home. And occasionally have little time excursions. You see, I can't be with just anybody. But with you, Edmund... I can be anywhere. And anywhen."

THE END